Cutting tools such as drills, saw blades, and common scything tools, for example, in general should have an appropriate hardness and cutting surface configuration to avoid damaging the material being cut. For example, it is well known that drill bits that may be appropriate for drilling holes into wood or metal may not be appropriate for drilling into soft plastics, because the drill bits for the wood or metal will cause significant damage or cracking to portions of the plastic extending away from the hole being drilled.
In many applications, cutting tools must be tailored for compatibility with both the material being cut and the materials adjacent to the material being cut. One example of such an application is found in the aircraft industry, particularly for aircraft made of soft composite materials. In aircraft maintenance, gap-filler materials such as a flexiblized epoxy resin may be used to fill gaps between edges of composite or non-metallic panels and components. To remove old gap-filler material in preparation for maintenance or to remove excess gap-filler material during or after the maintenance, typically hand tools such as spud bars or scrapers are used. While these tools are labor-intensive, they are generally required as a gentler alternative to machine-driven tools, because aircraft materials such as carbon, fiberglass-reinforced epoxy, bismaleimide, and polyimide, for example, are very easily damaged. As such, there remain ongoing needs for cost-effective, efficient, and less labor-intensive tools, particularly tools that can be machine-driven, for removing gap-filler materials from gaps between soft materials.